Introduction

This is a guide to collections of communication studies-related scholarly works, documents, and sources produced and collected by researchers at universities, scholarly societies, and other institutions. Many of the sites listed below are interdisciplinary, but searchable for materials [works] specifically about media, new media, journalism, newspapers, etc.

Institutional Repositories

Universities create collections of scholarly work by researchers affiliated with the institution or group. These may consist of faculty publications, pre-prints, student works, dissertations, etc., and may include resources relevant to communication studies. For example, University of Florida's College of Journalism and Communications repository available at http://web.uflib.ufl.edu/digital/collections/IR/ contains information about the Florida Digital Newspaper Program, as well as other news-related documents.

Most of the resources listed below are freely available, although there some exceptions.

Subject and Data Repositories

Specific disciplines and scholarly societies also create repositories of open access resources. Here are some specialized communications-related centers of scholarship and scholarly communication:

CIOS: Communication Institute for Online Scholarshiphttp://www.cios.org/
CIOS provides searchable indexing/abstracting, as well as resources to enable communication among communications scholars and editors. Some portions require a subscription, but others are freely available.

Communication Initiative Network:http://www.comminit.com/
From About the Communication Initiative: “The Communication Initiative (The CI) network is an online space for sharing the experiences of, and building bridges between, the people and organisations engaged in or supporting communication as a fundamental strategy for economic and social development and change.” Accessed 11/22/08; http://www.comminit.com/en/about-global.html

SSRN (Social Sciences Research Network)http://www.ssrn.com/
Social Sciences are the primary focus of this network, but resources may also be relevant to those in the communications field.

Please note: there are numerous freely available digital collections that include resources of interest to communications researchers. These are beyond the scope of this document, but notable examples include:

National Digital Newspaper Project, Library of Congress

http://www.loc.gov/ndnp/ {QUESTION FROM ELLIOT: THIS IS SITE FOR THE NEH/LC INITIATIVE TO GRADUALLY DIGITIZE NEWSPAPERS BY STATE. DOESN’T REALLY POINT TO /HAVE DIRECTORY OF DIGITIZING PROJECTS IN STATES, EXCEPT WHAT’S FOUND IN CHRONICLING AMERICA. MAYBE THIS BULLET BELONGS UNDER “INITIATIVES” BELOW}

Open access initiatives in Communication Studies:

Efforts to ensure access to publicly funded research include the NIH (National Institutes of Health) mandate to provide access to federally funded scientific and health-related publications, as described on the National Institutes of Health Public Access site: http://publicaccess.nih.gov/. PubMed Central, http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/, provides access to numerous health related and biomedical articles.